When he left in 2010, LeBron set up the Cavaliers to be bad enough to win the lottery three times in four years. Two of those No. 1 picks – Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett – will go to Minnesota in the trade, and the other – Kyrie Irving – helps make Cleveland appealing to Love.

LeBron also went to the Heat via a sign-and-trade. It got him more money, something not possible under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. It also netted the Cavaliers two first rounders and two second rounders.

One of those first rounders – top-10 protected in 2015 and 2016, unprotected in 2017 – is still pending. It just won’t be going to Cleveland anymore.

Cleveland also has the Grizzlies’ first-round pick (top-five and 15-30 protected in 2015 and 2016, top-five protected in 2017 and 2018 and unprotected in 2019) and the lesser of its own and the Bulls’ 2015 first rounder (if the Cavaliers make the playoffs; otherwise they keep their own pick).

The Cavaliers/Bulls pick clearly has the lowest value, and depending how you evaluate Memphis, the other two are close. Based on how these negotiations went, I bet Flip Saunders got his choice.

With Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Luol Deng, the Heat should avoid one of the NBA’s 10 worst records, meaning they’d send their pick to Minnesota this season. But Miami also shouldn’t be too good to avoid that pick falling into the late 20s.

LeBron leaving the Heat made that pick more valuable – just valuable enough to land him a star teammate in Cleveland.

Yuuuup. The sad part is that the Heat opted to trade for LeBron & Bosh rather than sign them outright so they could give them the extra sixth year on their contracts. And then all three players opted out after 4 and obviously LeBron left. So this has gotta sting for the Heat.

Oh God. Talk about rushing out tons of material today to account for the fact LBJ played all of you like a fiddle for years. You had zero inkling of this, people have covered all these angles long before any of you have decided to join the party the past few weeks to demonstrate your awesome power of hindsight.